Chapter 14

After sitting quietly in Nathan's protective arms for a few minutes Haley looked up at him with a thankful smile on her face. The smile fell quickly when she noticed his nose was still trickling blood and the bruises on his face were even more noticeable. "You're hurt," she stated softly and gently cupped his cheek, careful to not put pressure on his sore wounds.

"I'm fine," Nathan reassured. "As long as you're okay, I'm okay."

"Well, I'll feel ten times better when I know you're not seriously hurt. Come on, let's get you cleaned up," she said and stood up. She tried in vain in to pull on his hand in order to get him on his feet as well. When Haley had failed miserably, Nathan chuckled and stood up on his own.

"You know, you dressing up as a nurse has been on my list of sexual fantasies with you for a couple weeks," he winked and Haley rolled her eyes.

"You have a list of fantasies when we haven't even had sex once yet?" she asked in surprise.

"What can I say? You're hot, baby," Nathan confessed with a smirk and wrapped an arm around her waist.

Haley giggled as they walked in to her house through the back door into the kitchen. She grabbed a small rag and wrapped ice in it. Walking slowly back over to Nathan she uneasily pressed the cold make shift ice pack against his cheek. When she saw Nathan wince she immediately pulled her hand away and looked worriedly up at him with tears once again clouding her vision.

"Hey, it's fine. It was just colder than I was expecting," he tried to reassure and forced her hand back up to his cheek.

Haley grabbed Nathan's hand with her free one and guided it up to his cheek as well. She placed it over the ice on his cheek and let go of it. She moved across the room again and wet another rag before walking back to him and stopping in her previous spot. Haley brought the rag up to Nathan's face and wiped the drying blood from under his nose. She dropped her hand when they both turned to look at who just entered the kitchen.

"Whoa, what happened to you?" Keith looked at Nathan in shock.

Nathan shrugged and chuckled softly to ease the worry he saw etched in Keith's features. "Our game of basketball got a little rough, I'm fine."

"Really? Is that why Lucas came in basically dragging Jake up the stairs by the collar of his shirt and Brooke came running in a few seconds later asking where he was? Did I mention that his knuckles looked like they were bleeding pretty badly?"

Nathan grimaced and looked apologetically at Keith for lying. "It really isn't a big deal, Keith. It's nothing I can't handle."

The older man looked at the younger one sceptically and sighed. "Alright, fine. I'm not going to tell my wife about this because I have feeling if she found out, there'd be hell to pay for fighting in her house."

"Technically, we weren't in her house if it was in the driveway," Nathan pointed out.

"Do you really think Karen would care if you two were physically in the house or not?" Keith said pointedly.

"Good point," Nathan agreed and cowered at the thought of an angry Karen Roe. "Let's just keep this between us."

Keith chuckled and began to walk out of the room. He stopped and turned back to look at the teenage couple. "Clean up your knucklehead of a boyfriend, Haley. He looks disturbing."

Haley didn't find the humour in her boyfriend being injured and looked up at him sadly. Keith grimaced at his mistake and offered an apologetic look to Nathan who nodded and shrugged it off, it wasn't the older man's fault he upset Haley, it was supposed to be a joke.

When Keith had disappeared from the kitchen doorway the two teens focussed back on each other. Haley immediately launched herself into Nathan's arms and hugged him tightly. "I hate seeing you like this."

"Haley, I promise you, I'm fine. It's just a couple bruises, they'll be gone in a week or two and then I'll be good as new."

When he felt a dampness seeping from his shirt on his chest, Nathan looked down and noticed Haley had soft tears rolling from the corners of her eyes. "Hey, don't cry, baby. Everything is going to be fine, it'll all sort itself out."

"How can everything be fine when the two most important people in my life hate each other and are constantly at each other's throats?"

"I promise it'll all work out eventually. Maybe for right now though, it'd be a good idea to keep Jake and I separated because I can assure you that if he punches me again, I'm going to knock him out."

Haley smiled despite herself and squeezed her arms around Nathan tighter. "Thank you for not hitting him back tonight. I know how hard it probably was, but it means a lot to me."

"I didn't really have a choice," he chuckled. "You would have dumped my ass if I did anything to him."

Haley echoed his chuckled and nodded her head. "That's probably true."

Nathan smiled and kissed Haley lightly in the forehead. "It's getting late, I should head out."

"Okay, I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

"How about I pick you up and we can ride to school together?" Nathan suggested.

"That sounds perfect," Haley beamed and kissed him softly. "I'll see you then."

"Okay. Now go and find some time to make up with your best friend. I know how much you love him, even if I don't understand it." Nathan offered Haley one last small smile before heading out the front door of the house. Haley sighed in exhaustion and started up the stairs to her room. All she wanted to do was go to sleep and forget this horrible night. When she walked into her room though, she knew forgetting the night was not going to be coming as quickly as she wanted.

She shook her head in annoyance. "Get out, Jake. I have nothing to say to you right now."

Jake stubbornly remained rooted in his seated position on the end of her bed. He appeared hurt by her words for only a second before he masked it over with anger and a look of rebellion. "I'm not going anywhere until we talk."

"What is there to talk about, other than your massive betrayal? For God's sake Jake, you attacked my boyfriend! It's pretty cut and dry and I don't think there's anything I need to say to you except that you need to go home. You're not the same best friend I had back in California."

"Yes, I am, Haley!" Jake stood up in outrage. "You're the one that's changed. All of a sudden you're skipping classes and spending every single fucking second with that douche bag!"

"Seriously? You're going to go there again? I'm still the exact same person I've always been, except now I'm even happier. I'm finally learning to live my life to the fullest and Nathan is a huge part of that. I'm in love with him and nothing is going to change that, especially not you disliking him."

Jake growled angrily. "This is exactly what happened when you were with Damien. You started to become obsessed with him and forgot about everyone else in your life that mattered. You just let some jack ass become more important than the people who really loved you and didn't just want to get you in bed, and I sure as hell am not about to let you get hurt this time around like you did with Damien."

Shaking her head, Haley began pacing the room angrily. "How many times am I going to have to tell you that my relationship with Nathan is nothing like what I had with Damien? I was never in love with him, but with Nathan I'm so painfully in love with him that I can't breathe when I'm not with him. Nathan lets me be my own person and definitely doesn't try to force me to do anything I don't want to."

"Break up with him. Break up with him before our friendship suffers more than it already has because of your choices."

"I won't do that Jake; you have no right to even suggest that I break up with Nathan. That's something I will not do for you or anyone else for that matter. Now get out of my room, Jake. This conversation is over and I want you out of my house by tomorrow morning."

"I'm not leaving, Haley. Someone has to get you to see how toxic Nathan is to you. You'll see, I'm going to convince you that you're better off without him."

"God damn it, Jake!" Haley screamed at him as loud as she could. "When are you going to get it through your thick skull that I don't need to be protected from everything all the time? I get that you've been doing it for most of our lives and I'm more than grateful for it, but this time the only thing hurting me is your hatred of my boyfriend and new found inclination to attacking him!"

Jake looked shocked at his friend's outburst. She usually didn't snap on people like that and he had only seen her lose her temper that quickly once or twice. "I'm gonna go now, but I'll still be here in the morning," he vowed and walked past her out of the room.

Haley slammed the door behind him and collapsed angrily on her bed. All she wanted was for her life to for once be drama free and it looked like that was not going to possible for a little while, or at least until her boyfriend and best friend finally learned to get along.

"We've been here less than five minutes and I'm already getting annoyed by the staring."

"Shouldn't you be used to it by now though? You're like a god to everyone here, they're all always staring at you and dying to interact with you," Haley laughed and teased her annoyed boyfriend lightly.

"Yeah, but all those other times they aren't staring at me because it looks like I'm some punk that got his ass beat."

"Well, technically you did get your ass beat," Lucas pointed out as he walked up alongside the couple with Brooke on his arm.

Nathan glared at him and Haley looked sharply at him to indicate it was too early to be joking about the messy situation. "Not funny, Luke."

"Sorry," he said apologetically and looked at his cousin. "How are you doing today?"

"Couldn't you tell from the silent war I was having with my stubborn ex-best friend this morning?" she said sarcastically.

"Have you talked to him at all?" Brooke asked curiously and Haley snorted.

"It was more like screamed at him. He was going on about how Nathan is exactly like my ex boyfriend and how much I've changed. After he had the audacity to tell me to break up with Nathan I pretty much lost it. He tried to talk to me at breakfast but I'm not going to bother wasting my breath when I know it'll get us nowhere."

Nathan wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders. "You two will get past it eventually."

Haley looked up at him confused. "Okay, seriously why are you being so nice about Jake? I'd expect you to be going on and on about how he's an asshole and you should've knocked him out or whatever."

He smiled and kissed her cheek. "Because I know despite how angry you are with him right now, he's still you're best friend and you two have been through a lot together. As much as I hate to admit that you need him in your life, I know you wouldn't be the same without him available at the drop of a hat. It may be surprising to hear, but I hope someday Jake and I can settle our differences and at least be civil. I'm being nice about it because I love you and I'm finally coming to see that what you want more than anything is for your boyfriend and best friend to get along."

"Awe, how cute," Lucas joked and Brooke smacked his bicep, actually thinking Nathan's speech was completely adorable.

Without warning Haley crashed her lips onto Nathan's and pulled him as close as she could to herself. She eagerly delved her tongue into the concave of Nathan's mouth and explored. Nathan moaned into her mouth happily and let his hands roam down the length of her back. The sound Lucas' fake retching caused them to pull apart but remain in each other's arms.

"Okay, could you at least give a little warning before you start making out right in front of me?"

Haley shrugged with a small smile. "That's what you get when you're an asshole."

"Hey! If I went on saying stuff like he just did do you know how much he would be ripping on me all the time?"

"No I wouldn't!" Nathan claimed and looked innocently at Haley who was laughing softly with Brooke.

"Whatever boys," Haley commented and continued on with whatever mindless girly conversation she was having with Brooke.

Haley looked up curiously from her conversation at Nathan when she heard him grunt. "What?"

Swinging open his locker angrily, Nathan looked around conspiratorially at his gawking peers. "Their staring his getting really annoying and creepy. Yes, I have a bruised up face, now get over it!"

Haley smiled understandingly at him. "It'll die down. I can guarantee something more interesting will happen today, or tomorrow, or the next day and your injuries won't be so interesting anymore."

"I really hope you're right," he grumbled and grabbed the books he needed for his first period class. "Come on, I'll walk you to homeroom."

Nathan tried to ignore the whispers as he passed by people walking down the hall with Haley at his side. It was irritating him to no end but there wasn't much he could do about being the talk of the school. "Today can't go by fast enough."

"Don't let them get to you, babe. That'll only make you more interesting to them because then they'll be wondering why it seems to be making you so angry to be talked about."

"I guess you're right."

"I am," Haley smirked and kissed him on the cheek when they made it to her classroom. "I'll see you later."

"Yeah, bye," he said and turned to make his way to his own homeroom, once again seeing almost everyone he past looking strangely at him. Nathan sighed. Today was going to be a long day.

There was a knock on his bedroom door and he stood up to open it. When Jake saw Nathan standing on the other side he looked surprised and clenched his jaw tightly. "What do you want? No one else is here, if you're looking for one of them."

"I know. I actually came to see you."

Jake chuckled. "You're joking right? Or did you come to get your ass beat again? Although it does look like I did a pretty good job at doing that last night with only a few punches."

Nathan shook his head and sighed. It was already becoming difficult to stop himself from either punching Jake or at least screaming at him. "I'm here for Haley. She may not be speaking to you right now, but you're still her best friend and the only thing she wants is for us to be at least civil with each other."

"And you being the great guy you are decided to try to make her wish come true?" he scoffed. "It's not going to happen; I'm not going to fall for the nice guy act. We both know you're just an asshole that only wants one thing."

"How would you know, when we haven't actually ever had a conversation? Coming here I knew it wasn't going to be fun, but I thought you'd at least maybe try like I am, for Haley. Come on man, you play ball so why don't we go down to the Rivercourt and play a game. We can get to know each other a bit and make the girl we both love to death happy."

Jake sighed and Nathan knew he had him. "Fine, let's go. But know that the only reason I'm agreeing to this is because my friendship with Haley means too much to me to lose again over some guy."

"Alright. For the record though, I'm not with Haley for sex. I love her and we haven't even been together like that yet. I also know you probably hate me because of everything she went through with Damien and you're being protective because you don't want to lose her again or see he get hurt, but look at you two right now. She was actually calling you her ex-best friend all day, so it looks to me like the exact same thing as what happened when she was with Damien is taking place again except this time it's all your own doing."

"I know," Jake laughed miserably. "Why do you think I agreed to spend time with you? It'll get me back in Haley's good books at least."

"As long as you don't punch me again," Nathan added.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. In hindsight I'm realizing that I over reacted and you guys were joking around. It's just that when Haley was with Damien, stuff like that would happen and she would seriously push him away and he wouldn't back off. I was just assuming it was the same situation, until Lucas explained what was actually going on after she left this morning."

Nathan clenched his fist at the mere thought of another guy treating Haley the way Jake was describing Damien. He had heard all the stories from Haley herself, but nothing could compare to hearing it from an outsider's point of view. "I think I found our first thing in common."

"What's that?"

"If Damien West wasn't already dead, we'd both want to kill him."

Jake nodded fervently. "You've got that right. Hell, I want to bring him back from the dead just so I can kill him again."

Nathan voiced his agreement and put his car in park when they reached the court. They both hopped out of the car and Nathan grabbed a beat up ball from the nearby bush. He bounce passed it the other brunette and waited for him to make a move.

"You know, just because we agree on something doesn't mean I like you now."

Nathan smirked. "Same here, but hopefully for my girlfriend's sake we can at least make a little bit of progress tonight."

Jake shrugged. "Maybe," and he jumped up and watched the basketball leave his hands to sail through the chain net. He smiled at the sound and ran after Nathan who was running to the opposite net with the ball.

The two boys may not like each other still, but they both knew the smile that they'd get to see on their favourite blonde's face would be well worth getting to know each other a little and spending some time with someone they don't get along with.